Spirituality: This Memorial Day, let's remember war's real price

6:33 PM,
May 24, 2013

Written by

Norris Burkes
Gannett

I can hardly attend a Memorial Day service without remembering the true cost of war. It is a cost I've counted during my visits to more than 30 homes as part of a death-notification team delivering news no one wants to hear.

When most people imagine these notification teams, they see them through the lens of their own social experience. They invent a three-bedroom house where Mom is making dinner and Dad is helping a younger sibling with homework. They imagine a four-man squad marching to the door in dress uniforms, knocking, delivering a brief announcement and then retreating to a beige ...